Prehistoric Humans Had a Taste for Roasted Tortoise

Ancient man apparently enjoyed roasted tortoise. Researchers studying Qesem Cave near Tel Aviv have discovered that our ancient ancestors had a taste for tortoise.

"Until now, it was believed that Paleolithic humans hunted and ate mostly large game and vegetal material," said Ran Barkai, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Our discovery adds a really rich human dimension-a culinary and therefore cultural depth to what we already know about these people."

In this latest study, the researchers discovered tortoise specimens strewn all over the cave at different levels. This indicated that tortoises were consumed over the course of the early human 200,000-year habitation. The tortoise bones revealed striking marks that reflected the methods that our ancient ancestors used to process and eat the animals.

"We know by the dental evidence we discovered earlier that the Qesem inhabitants ate vegetal food," said Barkai. "Now we can say they also ate tortoises, which were collected, butchered and roasted, even though they don't provide as many calories as fallow deer, for example."

Qesem inhabitants mainly hunted medium and large game such as wild horses, fallow deer and cattle. This provided large quantities of fat and meat, which supplied the calories necessary for human survival. Until recently, though, it was believed that only the later Homo sapiens enjoyed a broader diet. This latest study, though, suggests otherwise.

"According to the marks, most of the turtles were roasted in the shell," said Barkai. "In other cases, their shells were broken and then butchered using flint tools. The humans clearly used fire to roast the turtles. Of course, they were focused on larger game, but they also used supplementary sources of food-tortoises-which were in the vicinity."

The findings reveal a bit more about what sort of conditions these humans dealt with and what their diet was once like.

The findings are published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

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